


of the nights we shared

by Sylv



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Lieutenant Duckling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She always expects to find him in his room, waiting for her, and he always is because where else would he be?</p>
<p>He is powerless to resist her.</p>
<p>[Lieutenant Killian Jones falls for Princess Emma hard and fast, but he doesn't make it in time.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	of the nights we shared

“I love you,” she tells him in the dark. Their bodies are curled into each other, legs tangled, fingers intertwined, breaths mingling. Even in the shadows her green eyes shine bright and her smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

Her dress is draped over the back of the chair he had thrown it over after peeling it off of her, and his uniform is scattered across the floor. The sheets are rumpled, their hair is mussed and sweat is drying on their skin.

“I love you too,” he whispers, and plants a soft kiss on her forehead.

;;

She haunts his dreams.

Not the good dreams either—not the ones where he is sailing across the ocean on his beautiful ship, his brother by his side—not the ones where his mother is still alive and tucking him into bed, pressing soft kisses to his forehead—not the ones where he is crossing realms and discovering new lands.

No, she appears, vague and shimmering, in the dreams where he wakes up to an empty house, his father having abandoned him for the more exciting world without a child. She kisses his palm while he drops to his knees and sobs at his mother’s bedside, begging her cold, lifeless body to wake up. Her arms wrap about his waist in the nightmares where he listens to Liam tell him he has been dismissed from service, and turns his back while he pleads, begs for him to listen.

He always wakes up to an empty bed in a cold sweat, shivers wracking his body, and wishing that she was there to brush her hand across his forehead, kiss him back to sleep.

He thinks this might be way he is so addicted to her.

;;

“Sir Graham,” he bows stiffly, and can’t help the slide of his gaze to Emma standing next to him, holding his hand and smiling sweetly, not looking at him at all.

“Lieutenant Killian Jones,” Graham holds out his hand to shake, and as soon as their skin touches, Killian feels as though he has been doused in ice water, chilling him to the bone. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Emma holds you in the highest esteem.”

“Does she?” she still isn’t looking at him, and he doesn’t think anything has ever hurt this much, a pain inside of his chest that nothing can cure except her touch and her words and the way that she wraps around him and pulls him under in the most gentle of deaths.

“I hope you’ll be joining us often in the coming days. You’re staying in the palace for a while, right?”

Killian nods. “We’re on leave in the capitol, so we will be staying in the castle as long as Princess Snow and Prince David see fit to house us.”

Graham laughs, a full sound, and Killian can feel his lips twist in distaste. “I’m the same, as it happens. Only here while I’m in their good graces, although I guess being their daughter’s fiancé helps matters a bit.”

He ducks in to kiss Emma but she pulls away, eyes finally turning to meet Killian’s. She blinks, and then smiles at him. “You’re coming to dinner, right? I know the official welcoming feast was last night, but you and Captain Liam are invited every night until you leave.”

Of course, that decision isn’t his. “I’m sure we’ll be there, Your Highness.”

;;

She is the one who comes to him; he doesn’t go to her—he isn’t _allowed_ to go to her because she is a princess and he is a man under the employ of her parents. She always expects to find him in his room, waiting for her, and he always is because where else would he be?

She peppers kisses on his fingers, gasps into him and arches when he touches her, has ready words of sweet nothings to drip into his ears, and he is sucked down again and again because she will always do this to him. Always.

He is powerless to resist her.

;;

Killian meets her at the first ball he ever attends at the palace. The enormity of the celebration is overwhelming. The high ceilings above him, the tables upon tables piled high with food, the masses of people dancing and spinning and talking around him.

He retreats to the side, content to watch his brother mingle and make connections as he always does, when the princess approaches him.

There is no mistaking her; blonde hair, beautiful green eyes, sure steps and a chin held high. Emma sweeps over to him and smiles, and he knows that he is lost already, enraptured with her in a way that he will be with nothing else in his life ever again.

“Do you like the party Lieutenant Jones?” she grins at him, and it’s like sunshine. “It’s all for you.”

“For the Navy’s service,” he corrects her automatically, smiling back. “And I thank you for it; it’s very kind of you.”

“Of my parents,” she teases him, sidling up close enough that their arms brush and he can feel the heat radiating from her. It draws him in, like a moth to a flame, and he thinks wildly that he would gladly burn in her light. “But I’ll pass it on.”

He is drowning.

;;

“Who is he?” Killian growls, clutching his drink too tightly in his hands.

“Graham,” Liam shrugs, leaning back in his chair. “Some special relationship with Snow White, was knighted and given lands and titles, something to that effect. I hear tell that he and the princess basically fell head over heels as soon as they met each other. Something of a fairytale romance, wouldn’t you say?”

Killian frowns. “I’d say he seems like an uptight wanker who rose above his station.”

Liam’s eyebrows make a solid jump up on his face, and he scrutinizes him over the top of his own glass. “Language at the palace, lieutenant. Especially when you’re talking about the princess’s fiancé.”

Killian swallows hard. “Yes, captain.”

;;

The first time she kisses him he inhales her, drawing on the essence of _her_ because it is intoxicating and he never thought he would get this, so he will savor every moment of it that he can. Emma’s hands tangle in his hair and she gives as good as she gets, drawing a long groan from the back of his throat.

When they are panting, foreheads pressed together, he mutters, “Gods, Emma, the things that you do to me.”

And then she is gone, cool air where her warm body used to be, and he feels lost, lost, lost.

;;

“Lieutenant Jones…”

She looks nervous, unsure when she pulls him over to a man standing and talking with her parents. Killian is focused on where her hand is on his arm, her touch burning through the material of his jacket.

“I’d like you to meet Sir Graham Humbert. My fiancé.”

The world tilts on its axis, and he can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t hear anything else because her words are echoing around his head, beaten and branded.

“My pleasure, sir.”

;;

The first time they come together, there is frustration in her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she mutters into the hollow of his throat, followed by a wet kiss. “How are you doing this?”

“I love you,” he answers, and she doesn’t run away. She kisses him harder, plasters herself to him like she wants to sink into his body and never come back, and he wouldn’t mind that at all because that’s what he wants too.

In the afterglow they lay together in the dark room, moonlight gleaming across their naked skin, burning in his wounds because she has split him open, and it is the most beautiful kind of pain he has ever endured.

“I love you,” he repeats, and she presses a soft kiss against his lips in place of an answer.

;;

“Why are you still engaged to him?”

His voice is raw, strained, weak, but she brings that out in him. He feels vulnerable around him, rough and broken, but she gets to see that in him. She gets to have everything he has to offer, and whatever is left after that. He is hers, forever.

“Because this marriage has been in the works for months! Because my parents approve of him, because I met him before I met you!”

He tries to grab her hands, to make her see but she backs away from him. “You have me now, love.”

“But I fell for him first, Killian!” There are tears in her eyes that she wipes away furiously. “He comes first.”

;;

Emma tells him that she loves him one night when he is moving inside of her slowly. She whimpers and sighs and whispers the words into his ear, like sweet poison, and he keeps his pace steady and strong, because he is determined to make love to this beautiful golden princess in his arms.

Afterwards he tells her that he loves her too, and she says it again. And then again, and again, and again, until he doesn’t understand the words anymore, simply the emotion behind them, the way that it makes him feel.

His drinks from the bittersweet cup because it is all that he will ever have.

;;

“I love you,” she says against his mouth as he kisses her, desperately. He won’t look at her below the neck because she is wearing layers and layers of white, and he can’t see her like that, can’t imagine what it would be like if he were the one at the end of the aisle.

She has her arms wrapped around his shoulder and has pulled herself flush against him. Killian cradles her jaw in his hands and tilts her head because this might be the last time he will ever get to do this, and he loves her, she loves him, he loves her.

“I love you,” she repeats, pulling back and smiling at him with sad eyes. “But I love him, too.”

He can’t watch her walk away from him, but he can feel it when she does.


End file.
